Spam, bugs, bytes and toilets

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Friday, 14 March 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• In 1943, a navy officer had to fix a computer glitch caused by a moth, hence the term "computer bug"
• The word "byte" is contraction of "by eight"
• The word "pixel" is a contraction of either "picture cell" or "picture element"
• Unsolicited e-mail earned the name "spam" because it resembled a Monty Python skit where chorus of Vikings drowned out other sounds by singing "spam, spam, spam."
• The time spent deleting spam costs U.S. businesses $21.6 billion annually.
• Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist".
• Back in the mid to late 1980s, an IBM compatible computer was not considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
• In many cases, the amount of storage space on a recordable CD is measured in minutes. 74 minutes is about 650 MB, 63 minutes is 550 MB.
• Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, reverse of how a record works.
• A silicon chip a 1.6-centimetre-square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.
• The world's first e-mail message was sent in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson.
• 35 billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world.
• During Bill Clinton's entire eight years of presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.
• 77% of Yahoo! Mail poll respondents said they are more aggravated by weeding thru spam than they are by cleaning dirty toilet.